


Let The Fight Do The Fighting

by RoseByAnyOtherName17



Series: The Lion, the Wolf and the Dragon [29]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Battle, F/M, Fear, First Meetings, Strategy, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 08:01:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18567232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseByAnyOtherName17/pseuds/RoseByAnyOtherName17
Summary: There are a million things that could go wrong, but they are out of time.





	Let The Fight Do The Fighting

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all I am LOVING the new season! Even so I plan to finish this series out and I hope you will finish it with me!

There was the risk that Gendry and his men would get lost in the tunnels. There was the risk that Cersei would light the city on fire before Myrcella came into view. There was the risk that she would have their throats slit the moment they were inside the castle. There was the risk that Euron Greyjoy would appear as if from nowhere to defend the castle.

 

There were a hundred other risks besides, but they could wait no longer to strike.

 

A raven was sent to Cersei informing her of their intentions, written by Myrcella. She assured them that, despite her years away, Cersei would recognize her writing. Arya was still wary of the girl, scrutinizing the scroll for any sign of a trick before allowing it to be sent, keeping an eye on her whenever possible. She didn’t believe that, no matter how accepting Myrcella was of her mother’s madness, she would so willingly turn her over to her enemies.

 

The night before they were to set out, Myrcella sought Arya and Nymeria out on the beach. For the first time in a long while, Arya was not sparring Gendry or anyone else, simply sitting with her direwolf and watching the waves crash onto the beach. Myrcella sank gracefully down beside her, on Nymeria’s other side. The direwolf briefly raised her head before lying back down with a huff. Another reason why Arya had decided to allow the queen to go through with the plan – Nymeria showed no sign of mistrust in the other woman.

 

“You don’t trust me,” Myrcella said quietly after a moment of silence. She didn’t sound accusatory.

 

“I don’t trust a lot of people,” Arya answered. “Not unless they’ve proven they can be trusted.”

 

“What did Gendry do to gain your trust?” Myrcella asked, and when Arya glanced at her, she looked genuinely curious. “What did my uncle and Her Grace do to gain your trust?”

 

Arya was honest in her response, unable to see a reason not to be. “Gendry didn’t tell the Night’s Watch that I was a girl, even though he figured it out long before he told me he knew. Then he didn’t tell them I was Arya Stark; he never told anyone I was Arya Stark. As for Tyrion and Daenerys…they didn’t have me executed the moment I stepped foot in Meereen. They heard me out and, once back in Westeros, allowed me to return to Winterfell. They trusted me to come back and keep my promise, and they have not broken any of the promises they made me.”

 

“And what were those promises?”

 

“My family. Winterfell. The Freys’ and the Boltons’ heads.” She paused. “Your mother’s head.”

 

Myrcella nodded slowly. “They haven’t kept that last one yet, have they?”

 

“They intend to,” Arya replied. “And…Daenerys spared Gendry. He is perhaps the biggest threat to her claim on the Iron Throne that exists now, but she spared his life and then some, all because of what he means to me.”

 

“Will you marry him?”

 

Arya wasn’t sure why the question surprised her so much. That’s where they were headed, wasn’t it? When this war and the next were finished, if they survived…she knew, with everything in her, that Gendry would do anything for her, go anywhere she wanted. But he had wants too – a family, a home, a _name._ She could give him all of that, even a name, if he chose not to be legitimized as a Baratheon. It was rare, but not unheard of, for a man to take his lady’s name and sigil in the North.

 

The prospect of marriage and love had never appealed to her, until she met Gendry. Even when she was a child, the strength of her feelings for him were rivaled only by her love for her family. It had only grown since then, and when he found her at Riverrun, some part of her that had long been lost suddenly reattached itself to her heart. And now, she could not, _would_ not, deny that she was in love with him.

 

“I would do anything he wanted,” Arya said, and realized it was true.

 

Myrcella nodded. “He would do the same for you.”

 

Arya smiled. “I know.”

 

There were a few minutes of quiet between them, broken only by Nymeria’s snoring and the crackle of a fire nearby. Not far, but far enough to be out of earshot, Gendry and Tyrion were once again wrestling a saddle onto Rhaegal.

 

Myrcella spoke again. “I will not betray you. I know that you think that I will, but I won’t.” She stared out at the sea. “All I wanted was to marry Trystane and live with him in Dorne. If there’s still a chance for that…”

 

Arya understood.

 

**

 

She knew her grip on Gendry’s hands was tight enough to hurt, but she couldn’t make herself relax.

 

“You know the way,” she murmured. “You have it memorized.” Between herself and Myrcella, they were able to sketch a map of the interior of the Red Keep. Gendry and the twenty men accompanying him had studied it for hours until they could recite every route they might need to take from memory. It wasn’t good enough, it wasn’t as good as knowing the castle itself, but it was what they had.

 

None of it was good enough for Arya.

 

“As soon as the gates are open, I’m coming to find you,” he told her.

 

Arya wanted to beg him to get out of the city and far away the moment he could, but she couldn’t ask him to abandon her. He wouldn’t do it, and she wasn’t strong enough to make him. “If something goes wrong,” she said instead, “go back through the tunnels to the boats. Go up the coast a ways until you can land safely away from the city.”

 

“Arya—”

 

“Promise me,” she whispered. “Promise me you’ll get away.”

 

Gendry squeezed his eyes shut, tilted forward until his forehead was pressed to hers. She waited anxiously for him to say something, to agree, to promise. When he opened his eyes, she knew the answer before he said it aloud.

 

“I love you.”

 

The kiss that followed was hard, his hand on her neck rougher than it had ever been, desperate.

 

And over far too soon.

 

He didn’t look back at her when he walked away.

 

**

 

Arya was afraid, more than she had been since seeing the doors to the Twins lock with her mother and brother inside, but she kept her expression stoic, impassive, revealing nothing of the turmoil in her head.

 

Cersei did not come out to them, as Daenerys had suspected she wouldn’t, but the gates opened just enough to allow herself, the dragon queen, Tyrion, Myrcella, Grey Worm and Missandei to enter the city. The dragons remained and Nymeria outside with the rest of the Unsullied and the armies from the Stormlands and the Reach. It was a formidable army that appeared at Cersei’s doorstep, but the city did not go up in flames – at least, not yet.

 

To Arya’s surprise, they were led not to the throne room, but to the king’s chamber where her father used to meet with the council. Cersei sat at the head of the table with only one man at her side. He wasn’t a large man by any means, but he wore the pin that Ned Stark had worn as Robert’s Hand, identical to the one on Tyrion’s chest. Now, the man standing at the entrance they passed through…even covered from head to foot in armor, Arya recognized the Mountain’s enormous stature. Red-rimmed eyes met hers from behind his helmet. Briefly, she wondered if the eyes of the dead beyond the Wall matched his.

 

Daenerys sat herself at the other end of the table, with Missandei on one side and Tyrion on the other. Grey Worm stood behind her as was his custom. To Arya’s surprise, Myrcella lowered herself gracefully next to Tyrion, seemingly missing the way her mother had begun to rise to her feet. Arya did not want to sit; for whatever reason, they had not taken Needle from her upon their arrival, nor the knife at her belt or the dagger in her boot. Even Grey Worm had been permitted to keep the spear that all of the Unsullied carried, though his sword had been taken from him. Perhaps Cersei did not see them as a threat, what with the Mountain guarding her from within and twenty men just outside, prepared to skewer them in a moment’s notice.

 

Arya didn’t trust this to be the case.

 

All eyes turned to her when she did not take her expected seat next to Missandei. She met Daenerys’ gaze only and, after a moment, Daenerys nodded minutely. Arya leaned against the wall between two windows, equidistant from the two queens. Cersei kept looking at her, eyes narrowed in contemplation. Arya stared back, arms crossed over her chest.

 

After a long, long moment, Cersei looked away first and, finally, looked at Daenerys. She had not done so this whole time. They regarded each other in silence, violet eyes to green. The room as a whole seemed to be holding its breath, waiting for one of them to speak.

 

It was neither of them.

 

“Mother,” Myrcella said, and the tension snapped.

 

This time, Cersei stood fully, crossing the room to her daughter. Myrcella stood as well, accepting the embrace she received, tucking her face into Cersei’s neck. Alarm bells were going off in Arya’s head, but she remained still, watching with what she hoped was a look of disinterest. Myrcella let go first, but Cersei did not release her for another second, and when she did, did so reluctantly. “I’m well,” Myrcella said before Cersei could say anything. “Father came for me in Dorne. I know,” she continued, when Cersei opened her mouth. “I know about you and Father, and I don’t care. But that doesn’t matter right now.”

 

“Where is he?” Cersei demanded.

 

“He’s gone North,” Tyrion spoke up, “to fight with the Starks.”

 

The sudden change from concern and love to utter hatred jarred Arya more than she cared to admit, watching Cersei slowly turn her gaze to her little brother. She said nothing to him, only stared, as though she would kill Tyrion with her bare hands right here and now. The tension was back in the room, thick enough to cut with the dagger in Arya’s boot. She forced herself not to move.

 

Daenerys cleared her throat. “We are not here to discuss your family and their loyalties,” she said to Cersei. “We are not even here to discuss the Iron Throne. There is a more important war at hand, one that draws nearer with every passing day.”

 

Cersei still said nothing, moving only to grip Myrcella’s hand in her own. It was becoming evident to Arya that Cersei had no intention of listening to anything they had to say. She looked ready to bolt, to take Myrcella and run out the door. From the way the Mountain stood, stiff and at the ready, it appeared that this was the plan.

 

“Mother, please, listen to us,” Myrcella said calmly, evidently as aware of the situation as Arya was. “There is something bigger at stake here.”

 

“ _Us_?”

 

Somewhere beneath them, Gendry and his men were making their way through the castle to enter the city and open the nearest gates, the ones that were conveniently placed where the army was, right next to the coast. The alarm had not yet been raised, but it might not have to be. At the harsh tone of Cersei’s voice, the Mountain had suddenly moved, a clank of armor and a hand at the scabbard on his hip. The fight might break out here, now, and they would all die with no way to signal the army outside or the infiltrators in the tunnels.

 

“My sister told me that you were the smartest woman she had ever known,” Arya said. “She learned more from you than she did anyone else in King’s Landing. Maybe in her whole life. You killed our parents before she had the chance to learn to rule from them.”

 

And _there_ it was. The sudden recognition, the curl of Cersei’s lip into that smirk that she had worn before Joffrey sentenced Ned Stark to die. “Lady Stark,” she said, and Arya ignored the chill that ran down her spine. “I should have known; you look just like that aunt of yours. The one that your _queen’s_ brother raped and eventually killed.”

 

Arya ignored the jibe. “Sansa spoke highly of you last we met,” she continued. “She never would have escaped King’s Landing if not for your teachings.” She pushed herself off the wall, looking steadily at the woman and wondering why so many men had been charmed by her; Cersei Lannister was perhaps the ugliest woman she had ever seen. “Sansa believed you were the most intelligent woman alive, but if you will not listen to your daughter about the coming threat, then perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps you are the madwoman that Westeros sees you as after all.”

 

It was a dangerous game, calling Cersei mad to her face. But there was one thing that Arya had learned about the Lannisters, and it was that they were prideful. Tyrion took pride in Daenerys; Jaime took pride in his ability to fight, even after losing everything; Cersei took pride in herself. She counted on that pride now, and was not disappointed. Cersei let go of Myrcella’s hand and resumed her seat at the head of the table. Arya returned to her position against the wall.

 

“Fine then,” Cersei said. “Tell me about this coming war.”

 

They let Myrcella speak, and when she faltered, Arya filled in the blanks. They told the truth, even beyond the White Walkers and the Night King. Between Tyrion, Arya and Myrcella, they described what had happened beyond the Wall, explaining that the Wildlings had come south to escape the army of the dead. Daenerys was the one who announced that Jon Snow had been crowned King in the North by his people.

 

Cersei sneered at this. “I expect that, if you defeat me, you will go to war with him next?”

 

“I will fight with him to defeat the Night King,” Daenerys said calmly. “Titles and distribution of lands can be discussed afterwards. Right now, we are here to ask for your help in the fight against the dead. There may not be much time left before they arrive, and then it will not matter which one of us is left to rule Westeros.”

  
“The Wall has stood for centuries,” Cersei said dismissively. “If your monsters and dead men are real, then it and the Night’s Watch will hold them.”

 

“It won’t,” Arya responded, struck by how similar Cersei sounded to Jaime when she had spoken of it with him. “It is structurally unsound and not manned well enough to hold off an attack. The Night King and his army _will_ get over the Wall; it’s only a matter of time. And when they do, if _all_ of Westeros is not united against him, we will die. King’s Landing will crumble around your precious throne, and you will become another dead soldier for the Night King to control.”

 

“And what is it you expect me to do?” Cersei shot back. “Call a truce, ride North with you and put my army at the front lines to die in an imaginary war? Your sister is right, Lady Stark, I am no fool, and I will not leave King’s Landing empty for your dragon queen to steal the Iron Throne from me.”

 

They were running out of time, Arya knew it, and there was no way to know if Gendry had made it close enough to the gates yet. There was one last thing left to say. “Your brother believed enough to ride North to defend the living,” she said to Cersei, looking into her eyes. “I thought you trusted your family?”

 

Cersei looked coldly back. “Jaime is easily manipulated,” she answered, “and my _other_ brother shot my father in the chest in cold blood. It appears that even my daughter has turned against me.”

 

“It’s not like that,” Myrcella pleaded desperately. “Mother, I want to save you. I don’t want you to die. _Please_.”

 

It didn’t matter, not when the Mountain was drawing his sword and moving forward to snatch Myrcella away. Cersei’s Hand stood up, grabbing his queen’s arm to pull her back as Grey Worm leapt forward to confront the Mountain. The actual fight had not begun, but there was not much time before Grey Worm or the Mountain struck, and at the sound of sword against sword, the Lannister men outside would surely pour into the room.

 

She had but a moment, and she moved without thinking.

 

She was barely aware of Needle going through the back of the Hand’s neck, nor of the cry he released. It was the signal for the doors to open and for Lannister men to enter, swords raised and battle cries on their lips. She saw Grey Worm stab at a crevice in the Mountain’s armor, saw Missandei and Tyrion herding Daenerys to the corner in a futile attempt to protect her, and saw the moment the first Lannister man realized what she had done.

 

Arya’s knife was against Cersei’s throat, and she had backed them up so that her back was against the wall and no one could come behind her. Cersei was taller than her, but Arya could see around her anyways, enough to know what was happening when she snarled, “Drop your weapons, or your queen loses her throat here and now.”

 

The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the dying Hand’s gurgling breaths on the floor. Arya pressed the blade harder against Cersei’s skin. She couldn’t see the thin line of blood that appeared there, but the Lannister men could, and the clang of swords dropping to the stone floor was briefly overwhelming. Silence settled again, and in that silence, she heard a distant roar of sound from out in the city.


End file.
